Tag: crime

Newark Surveillance

MA: You became mayor in July of 2006, you’re a couple of years in to your 4 year term. It sounds like right away when you became Mayor you started thinking about how surveillance could help some of the crime problems in your city. Can you talk about the Community Eye initiative, what it was when you started as Mayor, and what it’s become since then. CB: Sure, there was not really any kind of coordinated camera program what so ever. There may have been a few cameras out, but there was no monitoring, there was no substantive, strategic approach to using them. We realized right away that, one, from looking at other cities, and trying to learn from successes internationally to here in America, there was a lot of security leaders that talked about cameras as a positive thing. I knew we had to get more police on the streets. But we also had to find things that were force multipliers, ways of spreading out our police for in a way that gave us dramatically more coverage in preventing crime, reacting to crime, and adequately responding with emergency resources. So we began to explore the use of cameras, the first thing we did was use a local UEZ program, Urban Enterprise Zone to fund some cameras. Again, they were expensive, and I inherited a city that had a tremendous budget deficit. So I was trying to figure out ways to fund more cameras, we had already started a police foundation which was critical for helping with key technology advancements, from just getting computers into police cars, to other cutting edge things, they also funded our anonymous hotlines and tip lines for people who call in, and let the police know someone’s carrying an illegal gun and I know some information about a crime and get up to $2000 as a result of that. So we had a void, to try to meet my dream of having a huge wireless for cameras, and something else called gunshot detectors. Which means if a gun goes off in a zone, we’d be able to identify in seconds where the gun went off.

an update from the transparent society. wireless cameras and gunshot triangulators

NYC Mob Bust

US and Italian authorities launched a massive operation against the New York and Sicilian Mafia, arresting more than 80 suspects in a sweep described as a major blow against organized crime. The sweep netted 61 alleged members of 3 of the 5 families that run the Mafia in New York — the Gambino, Genovese, and Bonanno families.

yay, less scum in nyc. maybe my trash will now be collected by the russian mob?

Vishing

Vishing operates like phishing by persuading consumers to divulge their Personally Identifiable Information (PII), claiming their account was suspended, deactivated, or terminated. Recipients are directed to contact their bank via telephone number provided in the e-mail or by an automated recording.

vishing? you gotta be kidding me. also, you gotta be kidding me if you do business with your bank over the phone. you have it coming.

Addiopizzo

Addiopizzo (goodbye extortion money) is a grassroot antimafia movement of businesses and consumers who refuse to pay extortion money “pizzo” to the Mafia, and is based in Palermo. Addiopizzo is an open, fluid and dynamic movement, that acts from below and presents itself as a spokesman of a “cultural revolution” against the Mafia. It is constituted by all women and men, girls and boys, business owners and customers who recognize themselves in this sentence: “A whole population that pays the pizzo is a population without dignity”.

destroying the mafia in sicily. we need something like this for the mob in nyc.

Lead Theft

In addition to the abbey, 2 other local churches have experienced their roofs being stripped, including 1 she had just visited: “On Sunday, we were sitting in service and the vicar said, ‘Look up,’ and we could see the sky.” The rooftop thefts, which have reached epidemic proportions, with more than 1000 churches hit this year, are a function of the cost of lead. It has jumped from $450 a ton 5 years ago to $3200 this year.

why not intercept some shipping containers with chinese toys instead?

Anti Crime Mimicry

On a narrow Tokyo street, near a beef bowl restaurant and a pachinko parlor, Aya Tsukioka demonstrated new clothing designs that she hopes will ease Japan’s growing fears of crime. She lifted a flap on her skirt to reveal a large sheet of cloth printed in bright red with a soft drink logo partly visible. By holding the sheet open and stepping to the side of the road, she showed how a woman walking alone could elude pursuers — by disguising herself as a vending machine.

urban camouflage. i love it.